


we'll sell off our guns at the old surplus store

by rayguntomyhead



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24873031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayguntomyhead/pseuds/rayguntomyhead
Summary: Ratchet cleans the glass. White foam spray of cleanser, cloth at the top, slide it down. Up and down in neat, perpendicular strokes over the door’s inset window. The cleanser flecks the shining metal around it with faint damp spots. Should have done the window first, not last.Through the thin cracks around the door’s edges drifts the echo of faint cheers, a raucous cry raised in a toast to something from the party down the hall. Ratchet doesn’t look. Top, and down, top, and down, over and over until the glass squeaks.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	we'll sell off our guns at the old surplus store

**Author's Note:**

> Or Ratchet the night the war ended, purposefully vague continuity. i don't know what this is. it happened. have a thing.

Ratchet cleans the glass. White foam spray of cleanser, cloth at the top, slide it down. Up and down in neat, perpendicular strokes over the door’s inset window. The cleanser flecks the shining metal around it with faint damp spots. Should have done the window first, not last. 

Through the thin cracks around the door’s edges drifts the echo of faint cheers, a raucous cry raised in a toast to something from the party down the hall. Ratchet doesn’t look. Top, and down, top, and down, over and over until the glass squeaks. 

He backs away, rag hanging limp in his hand as walks from one side, to the other. Inspects for any smear he might have missed, and there. A faint smudge on the lower left. He wraps the cloth around a digit and carefully scrubs the dull yellow splatter of something probably better not identified.

He steps back. Inspects again. Nothing. Drops the rag onto his desk and curves around it to settle in his chair. It protests his weight, leaning back further than it should with a whining squeal and he shifts himself forward until it stops. His struts ache. 

The console screen is dark, empty. It’s quiet. So painfully quiet. He picks up his light pen, taps on the screen until it wakes and pulls up the audio program. The menu populates with soothing, melodious background music, the sort that won’t tax a recovering mech’s audial sensors or spook the jittery ones with its sudden intros and screeches. None any more appealing than the others. 

He connects the console to the datanet and pulls up the latest Cella album. The cursor morphs into a spinning pinwheel of color, cycling. The connection’s slow tonight. Too many mecha crowding on to call their friends and loved ones, tell them the joyous news. The speakers slowly warm to life with a low plodding beat, and a klik later Cella's vocalizer overlays it, rich and gravelly. It’s not what he's in the mood for. He doesn't know what he's in the mood for. It’s still better than the quiet. 

He sets the lightpen on the desk. Leans back in the chair until it he’s all but suspended, about to fall but never falling.  He needs a drink. That bottle of highgrade, it should still be in the bottom drawer. Special occasions called for it. The end of the war qualified. 

He could go out, into the noise and light and drunken revelry, the cork-popped champagne celebration of it all. Raise a toast of his own to the empty seats. He hooks his heel around the drawer handle, and tugs it open. Pulls himself upright again, ignoring the resulting complaint of the chair. It’s really about time to requisition a new one. After all, they’d have parts to spare for it now. 

He rummages with one hand through the jumble of stethoscopes, junk food wrappers, broken lightpens and forgotten paperwork. It’s still there, buried at the back. Lucky someone hasn’t filched it by now. Certainly enough traffic through here that someone could have if one of the light-fingers had gone rummaging. He gets his denta under the cap and pries it open. Tips his head back and chugs a third of it in one swallow. 

It goes down sweet and stinging, leaves warmth to burn his throat behind it. He leans back in his chair, stares at the blank white of the ceiling. It’s dingy, shadows gathered in the corners where it met the wall. Or is that dust? Tomorrow he’ll pull out the whole cleaning kit, give it a thorough scrub down. It’s the only thing left in here still dirty and he could do it on shift tonight, but he’s tired. He slumps in his chair, slowly rocking it forward and back, lets the bottle dangle in his hand. 

He could comm one of the others, Wheeljack maybe. See if they’d want a break from the chaos, come split the bottle with him and drink to new starts. New starts. New beginnings. Medbay, full of run-of-the-mill viruses and minor blunt trauma injuries from idiotic blunders. Regular schedules, evenings out and days regularly off. Sitting outside in the open to watch the sun rise and set, without telling anyone where he’s gone. 

His chest feels hollowed, empty. He brings the bottle to his lips without looking, and downs another mouthful. 

There’s a new ship full of new faces coming in tomorrow. Returning home at last, and after them will be another, and another. They’ll all need to be scheduled for checkups. And all the old faces have maintenance lists a planet long too, and entirely too much practice squirreling out of them. See them try to use their jobs as excuses now. He’ll wrangle them into medbay one way or another, just let them try and wheedle their way out of it. 

Another cacophonous cheer echoes, barely audible this time over the music. Celebrating. Ratchet should be celebrating. His processor swims light, dizzy, drowned in high grade on an almost empty tank. It should feel good. He lifts the bottle up and downs the rest in one long pull, swallowing it down until he almost chokes on it.

He could go sleep it off. In his real berth, not on the medbay cot. No need to. After all, they can page him if one of the joy-drunk idiots out there bangs himself up. Technically he’s not required to sleep in here anymore on duty. 

Or he could stay up. Restock the medbay. He really should do that soon. Trade out the trauma gear in the top drawers for plating patches and low grade pain meds. Tuck the major line clamps, the long splints, the fluid expanders, back into the red cupboards marked _battle dressing station,_ just in case. 

Not yet. Not tonight. Ratchet gropes for the open drawer, drops the empty bottle in without looking. Slides it shut with his pede, kicking it half-heartedly when it sticks not quite halfway in. 

He should sleep. Clean. Something. Overhead the music switches tracks, swinging into a something sweet and syncopated, Cella’s voice swinging and crooning along with it. _Happy End of the War, Ratch'._ He dims his optics, empty and hollowed, and thinks of nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are <3


End file.
